Questions
by eien yurai
Summary: Carol Jordan meets her brother for a drink after work and ponders her relationship with Tony Hill.


Carol quickly located her brother Michael at the pub. It was early enough so he had been able to snag a booth in the far corner of the joint, suitable for intimate sibling discussions over several pints of lager. He was hunched over two waiting glasses with a mischievous grin on his face.

Carol shrugged off her jacket after greeting him and swigged the ready cup of thick beer. Wiping traces of foam off her lips, she glared at her younger brother. "Dear God, Bro, how long has it been?"

"Too long. Job's kept me busy."

"Apparently. Haven't visited in how long? Money must be very good."

"Good enough to have moved for it. Haven't had a vacation in what feels like years. It's good to be out away from the desk."

"Oh I'm sure. Careful, Bro, you may catch a few freckles if you actually make it out in daylight."

"Careful yourself sis, I know you don't make it out of the work place much either."

"Too true, cheers."

"Cheers."

Carol felt herself relax as the discussion slid away to easy topics, work and family. She had missed living with Michael. His move away from Bradfield had left her alone in her flat. Well, at least she still had her cat.

For herself, too, this felt like a vacation. She had actually managed to take this Friday off early, first time in how long? How good it felt, to stretch her legs and slouch, not maintain the constant check she kept herself in at the office. No senior officers to deal with, no junior officers to console and develop, no haunting images of dead bodies tonight.

"Another?" She asked, as she stared at her reflection at the bottom of her glass.

"Most assuredly."

And they kept coming.

Third round had Carol by the bar, her mind slightly buzzed, an older man sizing her up. At work, if she caught a man leering at her in full view, she would quietly ignore him or sweetly deflect him, with a smile so well practiced she wondered even if it fooled Tony Hill (oh probably not). But now, well lubricated and free to do as she pleased, she turned to face her oogler, and smirked.

He grinned with a full array of tobacco stained teeth. "Care for a drink?"

She looked him up and down, sized him up as a piece of meat, and said, "No, I don't think so." Walking away with a smile on her face, she heard his friends jeering him and felt his blush at her back.

"God, I need to get out more," she said to Michael, pushing him his drink.

The pub soon filled up and Carol and Michael had to yell to communicate. They would take turns fighting their way to the bar while the other defended their territory of the booth. The fifth round had Michael making conversation with an attractive young girl on a bar stool, and leaving an extra glass for her.

Returning triumphantly with the fifth round (it was the fifth, wasn't it? Sixth?), he slammed the glasses down and said, "She wants me."

"They all want you, sweet heart." Each sibling had slunk low in their seat, slurring their words, and were beginning to gesture dramatically with each sentence.

"And yourself, darling sis? How's that love life of yours? Any recent winners?" Michael rested his chin on his hand innocently, his face a slight shade of pink, from heat or from alcohol.

"Hardly. Well, there's been one or two."

"Juicy?"

"If only."

Detailing her latest erotic encounters didn't take as long as she'd hoped. Carol was a free woman, and when the need struck her for a little male company, out of bed or over a dinner table, she went out and got it. Inevitably, once she'd had her fun, she found herself too involved with work to keep anything going for long. It never bothered her much: Job was Priority. But lately she'd had precious little time even to recognize a need. Instead, she found a stronger desire beginning to flourish, one she couldn't satisfy easily. She was beginning to think she'd actually like one of her men to stick around.

"But they're never my type really." She pushed her blonde hair back behind her ears and sighed. "I mean, what would they do with me? I'm work all hours; I'm moody, petulant. And although it would be nice to have some one to come home to, I'm never interested in any of them for that."

Michael ran his finger along the wet edge of his glass. "Hmmmm. None up to your criteria? I remember you being interested in that Tony bloke. He still around?"

Carol was so drunk and comfortable, she didn't even bat an eye. "We're co-workers Michael. We spend a lot of time together. That's it." He stared at her, waiting. "We're friends." She sighed again and looked at the ceiling. "We're close."

"That's new," he said.

"Yeah right. Next round?" she asked, starting to get up.

"Oh no no no," he said, smiling, and leaned in close to her. "She wants me."

She rolled her eyes as Michael made it over to the bar again and struck up another conversation with the pretty little blond thing. Carol tried not to judge the girl too harshly for having her jeans hang so low it showed her pretty little purple thong.

Staring at the ceiling, tracing grains the wood, she recalled her initial reaction to Tony Hill when she had been living with Michael.

She had been attracted to him, in spite of herself. He was strange, quirky, but nice, interesting. She even thought, back then, that he had been interested in her. But, as time wore on, he seemed to grow both more distant and close. Their friendship and work and wound them tight, but he pushed her away at the same time, or else seemed to not even notice her as a woman. Not attracted to her perhaps? She enjoyed his company, but they had never really discuss anything but work. Sure, there were moments, intimate moments that burned into her memory, and she knew he felt for her as well he could, but that was it. He was too involved, obsessed with his work and his hermitage to go out of his way to spend time with her. She had pondered once her twice, on initiating some sort of beyond work contact, but he was damaged, and she wasn't sure he could handle it. She didn't want to take the time to slowly peel him open; she wanted him to come to her. Forcing him to open up was trying to break a locked box, you destroyed it in the process. And their relationship now, though it bordered on something that both thrilled and scared her, was comfortable, supportive, and secure. He was surprisingly dependable, actually. Every trauma in her life she let him into, he soothed, felt with her. But that was just the therapist in him probably. She could never really tell.

Never really.

And it hurt her pride that he didn't seem to want her. Because she was still attracted to him, still debated within herself to head over to his flat and see how it went. But what in him would that violate? Would that be taking advantage of a lonely man? Or would that lead only to rejection, the final awful truth that while he did value her, care for her, he didn't want her.

He certainly never revealed much of the private workings of his inner mind to her. But then, were they just full of work? Gears trying to shift to the tune of the murderer they hunted? His neurons continually working on patterning themselves into psychopathic tendencies?

Even the small admission of his family, and his total lack of life outside work, the gently pushing back of her probing questions, just made her all the more positive he was not the man for her, or was not interested in the job.

But

BUT.

She remembered one occasion, burned into her memory.

They had been investigating a case of a murdered baby sitter and had been interviewing the family the unfortunate girl had worked for. Tony, having asked all the questions he thought relevant, wandered up stairs to glimmer what he could of the surroundings. While Kevin had been asking the tedious questions, Carol had gone up after Tony.

She had found him leaning over a cradle. The sight was so incongruous to her perception of Tony she hung back. The baby stared up at him in fascination, and the man leaned down, his own eyes equally fascinated. Tony held his had out, and the four-month hold baby wrapped its tiny hands around one finger. Tony murmured something, and the baby giggled and sputtered. And a smile cracked open Tony's face, a true smile, not the practiced one she was beginning to call his shrink face, but instead one of pleasure, interest. One she had very rarely seen.

The scene was so horrifically intimate, she could not bring herself to end it. Tony finally looked up and saw her, surprised, and drew away from the cradle. She was staring at him. He seemed embarrassed for a second, hands on his hips, but back he went into analytical mode and brought her attention to the pictures on the wall.

She could never tease Tony for that moment, it was too grossly intimate. Because she knew, that despite his reasoning for his own inadequacies, his own admittance for his lack of understanding of a normal life, he wanted one. A life that involved a child, and presumably a wife.

But he instead he had chosen to live his current life, leaving fatherhood as a fantasy, or he still longed for it, and felt he didn't deserve it.

Michael came back with a grin on his face.

"Number?"

"NUMBER!"

They tottered out of the club a half an hour later. Carol had decided to call it quits on the rounds when she found her self singing along to a Beatles song along with the rest of the pub.

Outside, it had begun to rain, and Carol and Michael stood in the overhang of the pub, watching it fall.

She signed and leaned against him, still pleasantly drunk. The pretty thronged thing from the bar had also found her way outside, and was giving Michael a decidedly alluring look from under her umbrella.

"So, bro, shall you return to my flat, or do we decide you don't want to take the time to call her tomorrow?"

He grinned again and put his arm around her shoulders. "Bye Michael," she said rolling her eyes.

He nearly whooped and kissed her on the head. "You are such a good sister!" Jogging over to the girl, he waved back at Carol underneath the umbrella. Carol, sighing again, wandered out from under her awning and leaned against her car in the rain.

Too drunk to drive she thought. She glanced at the nearest street sign.

"And the toughest question of tonight for drunk me," she thought, "do I call a cab or do I walk to Tony's place?"

____

I wrote this after watching half of the third series, so I hadn't watched the scene of Tony asking Carol to come with him, which is the final admission of his love for Carol that I think she was waiting for. I can't bring myself to watch series four without Carol Jordan.


End file.
